The Mystery of Winchester Manor

Chapter Two - "Arthur and Annalise"

Without uttering a word, Allie and Seth bounded out of the room and down the hallway, nearly tripping over themselves as they flew down the grand staircase to the front door. In record time, they both reached for the doorknob only to discover that it wouldn’t budge. To be more specific, the door was jammed, and they were locked inside.

“Dammit! Why…won’t…you…OPEN!” Allie yelled, as if it would help unjam their exit.

“Allie, Allie – let me try.” Seth bent his knees like a sumo wrestler and held a tight grip on the knob. After a few deep breaths, he yanked the knob as hard as he could, but to no avail. “Shit…” he remarked. “I guess we really are stuck in here. With a freaking ghost, no less.”

“No, no, Seth; that can’t be the only way out. There has to be another way. We could break a window?”

This would have been a good idea, had she not realized one detail. “If you haven’t noticed, all the windows are boarded up. Like, behind planks of wood nailed to the wall. Unless we can find a hammer or something, we’re staying.”

“Wait! Of course! Why didn’t I think of that.”

“What?”

Allie pointed at the door and for the first time in minutes, the color seemed to be returning to her face. “We can just break the door down again!”

Seth was starting to feel increasingly uncomfortable. “The door opens from the outside, Allie. We can’t break it down again. I thought you were the smart one, not me.”

“Well sorry I can’t keep my cool right now; a ghost just crashed our little powwow and I’m a little freaked out, if you can’t tell.”

What the hell was going on? It was a popular question to ask that day. From the strange occurrences in the house and in the forest, to learning that the Allie that Seth imagined might just be a façade, nothing was making sense. He was more concerned with the latter, however; Seth wasn’t sure he knew Allie at all anymore. Not that he ever did, but he decided to toss this aside and let things play out. Besides, they were going to be there for a while.

Seth couldn’t resist arguing with his crush, though. “All right - for one thing, we don’t even know if that was a ghost. Remember? There’s a freak thunderstorm brewing and the wind gusts have to be pretty strong, That’s probably what it is, nothing more. As for the door…oh my god. Oh…oh my god.”

“What?” Allie questioned.

“It’s my fault that we’re locked in here. When we were about to go upstairs, to poke around, I closed the door behind me. Nothing special, except that I faintly remember hearing it ‘click’, as if it latched into place. I had to ignore it, for your sake, but it’s my fault. I’m so sorry.” Seth slumped to the ground and curled up into a ball, placing his head on his knees, and waited for Allie to yell at him. Now he’d done it; there really was no way that she’d go for him. He accidentally got her locked up in a haunted house with him, a nerdy guy who had nothing special about him.

For some reason this made Seth remember a chapter from one of his favorite Japanese comics. The comic was called Nin-Buktu, a short series about a kid who tried to impress and later swoon his crush into liking him back. He tried everything from playing music for her to giving her roses every other week, and even attempted asking her on dates. But she denied him every time and instead when for all the jerks of the school. In the end the kid ends up dying trying to get her attention when he learns the art of Jutsu Susktu – Art of the Ninja Swords – and accidentally stabs himself. Bleeding out in front of the horrified school girl, he whispers, “This is where my heart has been all along”, pointing to her heart. The poor kid then gulps one last breath of air while the sticky red mess covers the pavement. At that moment Seth felt like the kid - bleeding, growing apart from his crush forever, and resting his heart elsewhere.